If Gov. Rick Snyder expects Michiganders to believe his professed interest in “worker choice” is anything more than the most cynical doublespeak, he’ll embrace a reasonable compromise Michigan’s Democratic congressional delegation proposed at a meeting in the governor’s Cadillac Place office Monday morning.

Those present at the meeting urged that instead of signing the right-to-work bill state legislators are expected to whisk to his desk Tuesday, Snyder should encourage the bill’s champions to place the question before voters in the next statewide election, currently scheduled for August 2014.

As a practical matter, the issue is almost certain to come before voters in any event — either as referendum, a proposed constitutional amendment, or a make-or-break issue that floods the 2014 gubernatorial race with tens of millions of dollars in undisclosed special interest money from outside the state.

The point of authorizing a referendum now would be to put new workplace rules barring a closed shop on hold until voters have had a chance to say whether they endorse Snyder’s abrupt about-face on right-to-work.

Let’s be clear here. Snyder has pulled one of the more offensive bait-and-switches in recent political memory. During his campaign and since his election, has said right-to-work was too divisive for Michigan and that it wasn’t on his agenda. Then last week, he did a monumental skin-back on that position.

He says it’s about worker choice — that employees ought to be able to choose whether they’re part of a union.

That in and of itself is specious. In Michigan, the law doesn’t require anyone to join a union or even pay dues; workers covered by a closed shop contract only have to pay a fee to cover the cost of the union’s responsibilities to protect their jobs and negotiate their salary and benefits.

But if the governor really believes in choice, why wouldn’t he let voters choose for themselves whether to accept his sudden change of heart?

• RELATED: How the Michigan legislature voted on right-to-work bills
Alternatively, congressional Democrats suggested that Snyder could sign right-to-work legislation but line-item veto the token appropriation attached to it. Michigan law precludes voters from reversing a legislative appropriation by referendum, and the transparent purpose of attaching such a rider is to leave right-to-work opponents with no alternative but to amend the constitution, a process that is both more time-consuming and more-expensive than a referendum.

Snyder reportedly told the congressional delegation that he’d take their recommendations under advisement, but right now most legislative observers expect that Republican House will members to pass two bills the Senate approved last week without amendment, and that Snyder will quickly sign them.

That won’t be the end of the debate, but it would blast away the last pretense that Snyder gives a hoot about expanding worker-choice.